The decree by Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos to dissolve the parliament and order a snap general election for July 7 has officially entered into force and marked the start of the election campaign
ATHENS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th June, 2019) The decree by Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos to dissolve the parliament and order a snap general election for July 7 has officially entered into force and marked the start of the election campaign.The new parliament is expected to convene for the first time on July 17.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras asked Pavlopoulos on Monday to dissolve the parliament and call an early vote because the ruling Syriza party lost to the conservative opposition New Democracy party in last month's European Parliament elections. Tsipras said that the four-month period before the next elections would pose a threat to the national economy, which had just started to emerge from a crisis. The prime minister also said he wanted to secure "the people's mandate."
The prime minister and the government will not resign and continue fulfilling their duties until a new cabinet is formed.
Since 2004, all parliamentary elections in Greece have been held ahead of schedule, and no government has served out its four-year term in full.
ELECTIONS DURING SUNBATHING SEASON
"Look, let's not ruin sunbathing for people," one of the most popular Greek politicians, former PASOK party leader and former Prime Minister Giorgos Papandreou, said in the mid-1980s when his colleagues suggested organizing early elections in the summer.
Tsipras has said he would not hold elections until October and promised that the government would finish its four-year term. Summer is the wrong season for political debates since this is a time when tourists revenues go up along with the general mood of the public.
However, the fact that Syriza suffered a crushing defeat in the regional, municipal and European elections of May 26 changed everything. The party lost by a 9.3-point margin to New Democracy in the European Parliament elections; New Democracy candidates ended up on top in 12 out of the country's 13 regions for the first time in history; and the opposition prevailed in most local bodies.
Tsipras had said that the May elections would be a vote of confidence in his government's policies, a vote, as it turns out, he would not end up winning. Following the defeat, the prime minister said that while the election results did not meet his party's expectations, he still recognized them.
Now, according to Tsipras, the Greek people have to make their final decision on whether they want the government to continue its course or choose to return to "the darkness of austerity and the International Monetary Fund."
Analysts named a number of reasons that could have influenced the voters' decisions.
The first one is the so-called Macedonian issue, which largely affected the party in the north of Greece, where New Democracy was ahead by 20 points. All Greeks agree that the problem of renaming its neighbor to the north had to be solved long ago, but many are unhappy with the fact that Greece's historical region of Macedonia is still mentioned in the name of the Republic of North Macedonia. In their opinion, the Athens-Skopje renaming agreement did not resolve all problems and may have negative consequences for Greece in the future.
The second has to do with the fact that the Greek middle class has suffered greatly from Syriza's tax policy, which entailed the party raising taxes at the request of lenders in order to patch numerous holes in the budget.
Discontent with the ruling party is also rooting in the unethical behavior exhibited by some of its members, something that has even been recognized even by the party itself. Local media have blamed Tsipras for condoning such behavior instead of condemning it. One such instance involved the prime minister supporting Alternate Health Minister Pavlos Polakis, who had made unacceptable remarks about a wheelchair-bound New Democracy candidate for European Parliament. The incident led to a wave of criticism against Syriza in the media.
Syriza's defeat may also be related to the government's failure to stop the deadly wildfire in the country's southwestern resort of Mati, which killed over 90 people on July 23, 2018.
The government's decision to start distributing social benefits a few days before the elections may also have factored into Syriza's poor performance, analysts speculated.
Whether for all these reasons or just some, opinion polls on the eve of the May elections had the gap between the two parties ranging from 6-8 points, twice as big as campaign projections showed.
Syriza misread the situation and entered Election Day confident in its own victory, meaning that the voting results came as a surprise for the party.
Polls now project that Mitsotakis from the New Democracy party will be the next prime minister. He is predicted to secure about 37-38 percent of the vote in the July 7 elections and create a government independently, without offering to form a coalition. Polls also show that Syriza is expected to trail behind with about 26 percent of the vote. Naturally, national elections differ from the European Parliament vote, so the results may largely differ from the projections.
There is no doubt, however, that the main struggle will unfold between Syriza and New Democracy, which advocate the left- and right-wing ideologies, respectively.
"We have been fighting for the left idea for 45 years, it is still here, so everything will be fine," a member of Syriza told Sputnik.
Tsipras has noted that the election campaign should focus on programs for each industry so that citizens can compare Syriza's program with that of New Democracy.
"We must all be very strict with ourselves, showing zero tolerance for behavior that is alien to the principles and values of Syrzia and the left," Tsipras said.
Mitsotakis, for his part, has declared that New Democracy had a well-structured plan that "will not leave behind a single Greek."
"The Greeks are demanding the future they deserve. We will talk about all this during the election campaign until July 7. We will discuss how the country will develop, how to support tourism, create new jobs, reduce taxes and what to do so that the Greeks feel more secure," he said.
Centre-left Movement for Change (KINAL) is now facing difficulties after its leader and former foreign minister, Evangelos Venizelos, quit the party after the EU elections. Venizelos had quite a few supporters and now some of them are leaving KINAL, a move that may affect the party's results in the national elections.
The Communist Party of Greece did well in the European elections, so now it has set another goal to keep every vote it had in May. The party claims that there are no underlying differences between the policies of Syriza and New Democracy.
The far-right Golden Dawn party lost half of their votes in the May elections compared to the 2014 EU results. However, a new extreme right-wing player, the Greek Solution party, has emerged. The newcomer, founded by a former member of the European Parliament and former New Democracy member, Kyriakos Velopoulos, won 4.1 percent of the vote, 1.1 points above the necessary threshold.
Velopoulos is now harshly criticized for his pro-Russia attitude and observers believe that Velopoulos's party might not get enough votes in July to get into parliament. Mitsotakis has, however, already ruled out an alliance with Greek Solution.
The six parties that overcame the 3 percent threshold collectively won 79 percent of the vote, while the remaining 34 parties accounted for 21 percent of the vote.
The Independent Greeks alliance, which was part of a coalition with Syriza until it left in January 2019 in protest against the Macedonia name deal, said that it would not run in the upcoming Greek elections. Experts predict that Independent Greeks' votes may go to New Democracy.
The centrist River party has been experiencing serious internal difficulties since its founding in 2014. Its leader, Stavros Theodorakis, has already announced his resignation from the young party.
The Union of Centrists party, led by Vasilis Levendis, who first entered the parliament in 2015, also has bleak prospects for the future. It gained less than 1.5 percent of the vote in the European elections.
The left-wing European Realistic Disobedience Front, led by former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, was short 0.01 percent of the vote and failed to get a seat in the European Parliament. The party was actively supported by the Greek youth.
The far-left Popular Unity party also performed poorly in the European elections, getting only 0.56 percent of the vote. Its leader, Panagiotis Lafazanis, has announced since his resignation.
The political movement Course to Freedom, led by Greek lawyer Zoe Konstantopoulou, is also unlikely to get into the Greek parliament after winning a mere 1.61 percent of the vote in May. Its attempts to unite several small left parties into a single bloc have not yet been successful.
